Thursday, June 15, 2017

Sing It Out Loud!

Music exists and is created for thousands of different reasons. Some songs are written for a specific purpose, born to fill a need, while others are brought into the world from a moment of inspiration that brings forth a flood of melody and harmony. My musical taste spans genres and my list of favorite songs includes everything from The Weavers "If I Had a Hammer" to Stevie Wonder's "Uptight." When I stopped to think about the songs that might make my list of favorites I came to the realization that a few of my favorite songs are those written by fictional characters from movies and TV shows. Because writing a song in the persona of a fictional character presents a unique challenge - falling squarely into the 'written for a specific purpose' category - I thought it high time to give those songs their due. From songs about the great city of Miami to beloved tiny horses, below are some of the best.

Miami You’ve Got Style – This classic from The Golden Girls, written for a songwriting competition by Dorothy (Bea Arthur) and Rose (Betty White), is incredibly fun. Rose tickles the ivories (in the most literal sense of the word of course) and she and Dorothy harmonize about Miami’s blue sky, nightclubs and beaches. How do you not love a song whose early drafts include words that rhyme with ‘thrice’ and ‘intrauterine'? Second place? They were robbed.

Another Perfect Day – Ah, Even Stevens, a show that was ahead of its time. Even Stevens was quirky, think Arrested Development or Scrubs for tweens, and it’s actually rather astonishing that it lasted three seasons. "Another Perfect Day" was a hit for Louis (Shia LeBeouf) and best friend Twitty’s (AJ Trauth) band, The Twitty Stevens Connection. Beans (Steven Anthony Lawrence) performs the song with a hamster cage on his head, we’ll leave it at that.

Dance Rascal Dance – This song from the film Hello, My Name is Doris really rocks. Written by the very real rock star Jack Antonoff for the fictional band Baby Goya and the Nuclear Winters the song features in a crucial concert sequence. With a pulsing beat and lyrics such as "Dance like you’re on fire" it is impossible not to get swept up in its’ wake. Doris (Sally Field) rocks her neon garb and we get to rock out.

I would be remiss not to give a quick shout out to the rewrite of “O Holy Night” from the film Cedar Rapids. Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) rewrote the season classic for his employer’s Christmas party and the sweet refrain of "home, auto, life" is sung so earnestly that in spite of yourself you start to take it seriously. The reactions from Deanzie (John C. Reilly) are absolutely priceless.

5,000 Candles in the Wind – The gold standard. This gem from Parks and Recreation is as catchy as it is absolutely ridiculous. Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), tasked with writing a song for the memorial of Li’l Sebastian, knows he has a hit on his hands when he envisions something better than a singular candle in the wind: 5,000 candles in the wind. Some renditions feature Duke Silver (Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson moonlighting as the Duke) on sax but all renditions demonstrate Pawnee’s strange yet sweet devotion to one very special tiny horse.